The other day, an article from a popular motherhood blog came across my Facebook feed after a friend of mine commented on it. It was one of those “open letters” that are really just thinly veiled excuses to rant. They’re everywhere: questionably authentic encounters used to spout off and incite controversy for pageviews. Normally, I would have rolled my eyes at the obvious clickbait and kept on scrolling. This time, however, I got sucked in.

My beautiful, tow-headed three-year-old son attempted to start his morning at 4 AM the other day. It was, admittedly, early; even for him. His customary roll-call is between 6 and 6:30, although he will occasionally snooze for another decadent hour. This usually depends upon a few things: the phase of the moon, the position of the stars, and whether or not you perform the bedtime ceremony precisely. However, there is no way to know if you’ve done it properly till the next morning so, basically, you have no control whatsoever.